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Monday, June 9, 2014

Guy in Real Life by Steve Brezenoff

Guy in Real Life
by Steve Brezenoff is a charming book. And if you think “charming” sounds too
effeminate a for a book by a guy, about a guy (in part), in a review by a guy,
and thus forms a lesser compliment because of that supposed feminine
connotation, then you need to read this book more than you know.

“It’s all role-playing,
I think as we walk (116).”

Lesh Tungsten (+1 for using a literally heavy metal for a
character name) hides behind his dark hair and his darker music. He plays his
role well. At least until he and Svetlana Allegheny meet cute, if you consider
drunk and damaged to constitute “cute.” Opposites attract, or in this case, crash into each other. Svetlana is the light to Lesh’s dark,
the eloquently aesthetic female to his mute brooding adolescent male.

Svetlana crashing into Lesh’s life also leads to Lesh being
grounded, which leads to his best friend Greg’s renewed attempt to convince
Lesh to join him in a popular MMO (massively multiplayer online game, for the
unitiated—think World of Warcraft).
Lesh succumbs, but instead of spending his time leveling up the brutal warrior orc
character he makes with Greg, Lesh succumbs to other urges and creates a
beautiful, holy elf character named…Svvetlana. Adding to Lesh’s confusion, he
finds himself drawn to this alternate online female identity, as Svvetlana
joins a guild with a male character clearly smitten with her.

In real life, Lesh and Svetlana begin eating lunch together
in the school cafeteria, and what begins as Lesh helping Svetlana reject the
unwanted attention of another male student drifts and then dives into mutual
attraction between the heavy metal boy and the artistic, literary, role-playing
game master. Yes, role-playing game master. (Sensing a theme here?) And when
Svetlana’s Gaming Club needs another member to meet the minimum requirement for
an official school club, you can imagine who she asks to join.

Brezenoff alternates chapter narration among Lesh, Svetlana,
and (most interestingly) Lesh’s online identities, Svvetlana the elf and Kugnar
the orc warrior. We also delve deeply into the narrative of Svetlana’s
role-playing game. The varying narrators help Brezenoff avoid the worst
of the manic pixie dream girl stereotype. While Svetlana certainly does help
move Lesh from darkness to light, Lesh’s experiences online as Svvetlana do so
even more. I found those sections the most interesting, as Lesh deals with the
tension of pretending to be a girl, and the growing realization that parts of
this identity are preferable to the real, “male” role he inhabits in real life.
Speaking of real life, I appreciated how, although the Svvetlana online secret
identity led predictably to real-world complications, they were not the
complications I anticipated.

Sweetness and intelligence (“…and he does poke the last
speck with one tine and he does eat it, abandoning Zeno like every decent
philosopher since Zeno”-- + infinity for Zeno’s paradox reference) course through
this vibrant young adult novel. This combination will undoubtedly garner
comparison to John Green, but Brezenoff establishes his own voice(s) here, and
in these times when our definition of masculinity has been “bro”jacked and
diminished, I hope the larger questions Brezenoff asks about gender and
identity are brought to as many readers as possible.